Guinean government censors private radio station

August 30, 2012 1:21 PM ET

Lagos, Nigeria, August 30, 2012--Authorities
in Guinea closed a private radio station on Sunday, preventing the outlet from
reporting on the next day's protests, according to news reports. Liberté FM has
been targeted in the past, the reports said.

Authorities in Guinea's southeastern
N'Zérékoré forested region summarily shut Liberté FM in the evening without
providing an explanation to the station's staff, according to news
reports. Local journalists told CPJ they believed
the station had been closed to prevent it from broadcasting protests in
Conakry, the capital, news reports said. Opposition leaders had called for
protests on Monday to demand free and transparent parliamentary
elections, which have been repeatedly postponed since 2010, the reports
said. The journalists also said the outlet had been targeted because it had
allowed opposition leaders to call for protests over the August 3 massacre by security forces of villagers in the Zogota district in
the N'Zérékoré region.

The station was unable to
broadcast live coverage of the protests, news reports said. It was allowed to
resume broadcasting on Monday afternoon only after rights groups, press unions,
and opposition leaders condemned the closure publicly, according to news
reports.

Liberté FM's director, Alpha
Saliou Diallo, told CPJ that the regional governor, Lance Condé (no relation to the president), had
told him that the station had been shut down on the orders of the "highest
authorities" in Conakry, the capital. But presidential spokesman Mohamed Lamin
Soumah told CPJ that the decision to close Liberté FM had been made by the
regional governor as a result of the station's coverage of the killings in Zogota. Soumah called the governor's decision an "abuse
of authority," and said that it had prompted the government to reverse the
order, news reports said.

Liberté FM has been targeted in
the past. Diallo told CPJ that police had shut the outlet in 2010 during a live
broadcast and detained two journalists for criticizing President Alpha Condé. In
early 2007, military officers vandalized the station's offices in Conakry and
arrested several journalists, news
reports said.

"By censoring news outlets like
Liberté FM and intimidating journalists, Guinean authorities continue to undercut
democracy," said CPJ Africa Advocacy Mohamed Keita from New York. "President
Alpha Condé's government should stop this trend and allow the press to do its
job."

Several journalists were harassed
and their vehicle damaged during Monday's protests in Conakry, local journalists told CPJ. Abdourahamane
Diallo, a journalist for the local Espace FM, reported that the attacks occurred in the presence of police
officers, who did nothing to help the journalists.

Soumah told
CPJ that opposition supporters had attacked the journalists. "It was opposition
militants who attacked the journalists because they were unhappy that security
blocked the demonstration."

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July 28, 2011 6:06 PM ET

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